2- 


Refrinted  from  "The  Sun"  of  August  30.  1 91 4. 


SOCIALISM  AND  WAR 


THE  NATIONAL  CIVIC  FEDERATION 


HILE  so  many  tremendous  questions  growing 


for  consideration  at  the  moment,  it  is  well 
not  to  let  all  the  small  ones  go  by.  One  of  these 
latter  is  the  enthusiasm  with  which  many  good  peo- 
ple are  accepting  the  fallacy  that  the  socialists  are 
entitled  to  great  credit  for  their  humanitarian,  far- 
seeing  and  peace-loving  policies.  They  are  ap- 
plauded by  many  of  the  church  people,  and  espe- 
cially by  the  peace  societies,  because  they  are 
against  war,  against  all  battleships  and  forts,  and 
armies  and  navies.  They  might  add  that  they  are 
also  against  the  State  militia  and  the  police.  Our 
church  friends  are  entirely  right.  The  Socialists  do 
stand  against  all  these  things;  but  why?  Not  for 
reasons  of  humanity;  not  that  they  are  opposed  to 
the  horrors  of  battle  and  the  bloodshed  of  war,  be- 
cause they  are  not.  In  fact,  they  are  in  favor  of 
those  things  and  expect  to  use  them  all  with  the 
same  ferocity  with  which  they  are  now  being  used 
in  Europe.  What  the  socialists  are  working  for  is 
a  revolution  of  their  own  through  which  they  shall 
destroy  "capitalism,"  including,  of  course,  the  capi- 
talists, big  and  little,  should  they  offer  objection  to 
being  despoiled  of  their  property.  The  Socialists 
are  now  against  armies  and  navies  and  battleships 
and  forts,  and  all  the  other  panoply  of  war,  because 
they  do  not  want  to  have  to  meet  those  armies  and 
navies  when  they  undertake  to  confiscate  the  prop- 
erty of  the  world  and  take  over  the  governments  to 


By  RALPH  M.  EASLEY 


Chairman  Executive  Council 


war   are   presenting  themselves 


themselves.  There  is  no  excuse  for  intelligent  peo- 
ple not  understanding  this,  because  the  leaders  of 
the  Socialist  Party  do  not  disguise  it  in  any  way. 
They  want  everybody  to  know  it  and  they  will 
doubtless  thank  me  for  writing  this  article. 

The  ablest,  most  important  and  most  responsible 
Socialist  paper  in  the  United  States  is  The  New  York 
Call.  Its  editor  became  so  disgusted  with  the  maud- 
lin, mushy  misconstruction  of  Socialist  motives  that 
in  his  leading  editorial  in  the  issue  of  Saturday, 
August  15,  under  the  caption,  "Where  We  Stand," 
he  furnishes  material  that  ought  to  be  interesting 
to  those  peace  advocates  who  are  making  allies  of 
the  "Reds,"  and  especially  to  the  American  Associa- 
tion for  International  Conciliation. 

Lack  of  space  forbids  quoting  in  full  the  editorial 
in  The  Call  referred  to,  but  the  following  extracts 
will  give  a  clear  idea  of  its  philosophy:  (The  italics 
in  all  quotations  in  this  article  are  mine.) 

"They  (certain  correspondents)  make  it  nec- 
essary for  us  to  state  our  position  on  the  War, 
as  regards  the  elements  involved,  and  we  pro- 
pose to  do  it  here  and  now  in  the  plainest  of 
plain  language.  Those  who  may  be  offended 
thereby  may  do  as  they  please.  They  are  not 
socialists.  For  in  this  matter  we  take  our  stand 
impregnably  and  unmistakably  on  this  position 
of  International  Socialism. 

***** 

"We  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  we  give 
news  concerning  the  War  which  no  capitalist 
paper  in  this  city  or  elsewhere  dares  to  give, 
and  which,  if  they  get  it,  is  universally  sup- 
pressed. It  is  the  news  of  the  'war  against  war,' 
THE  ACTIVITIES  OF  THE  EUROPEAN  SO- 
CIALISTS IN  TURNING  THIS  CATASTROPHE 
AS  FAR  AS  POSSIBLE  TO  THE  ADVANTAGE 
OF  FUTURE  SOCIAL  REVOLUTION. 

***** 

"In  The  Call  office,  there  are  Americans,  Ger- 
mans, Russians,  British,  French  and  even  peo- 
ple from  the  Balkan  States.  But  all  stand  for 
and  desire  but  one  thing  out  of  this  War — 
social  revolution.  That  consideration  subordi- 
nates everything  else. 

***** 

"We  want  to  see  the  workingmen  of  all  these 
lands  turn  on  their  butchers  and  murderers,  and 


■2 


rend  them  into  fragments,  and  stamp  out  for- 
ever the  abominable  class  rule,  the  capitalism 
that  has  turned  a  continent  into  a  shambles. 

*  *    *    *  * 

"And  now  the  thing  has  started,  we  don't  care 
how  they  do  it,  whether  with  cannon,  musket 
and  sabre,  or  with  confiscation  and  legislation. 
Any  old  way  that  is  most  convenient,  provided 
only  that  they  do  it. 

*  *    *    *  * 

"We  have  not  the  slightest  interest  in  the  so- 
called  'civilization'  that  it  is  claimed  one  or  the 
other  group  is  fighting  for.  It  is  the  same  thing 
in  all  cases — imperialism,  militarism,  dominion, 
wage-slavery,  exploitation  and  capitalism. 
***** 

"We  have  not  started  this  thing  (the  War) 
and  we  hope  that  our  correspondents  will  coni- 
prehend  us  when  we  say  that,  now  that  it  is 
started,  the  most  cold-blooded  calculation  on 
our  part  at  the  present  moment  is  that  they 
should  all  bleed  each  other  to  exhaustion  so  that 
the  coming  social  revolution  may  have  an  easier 
job  of  sweeping  out  the  stinking  fragments.  We 
are  through  with  protesting,  mourning  and  de- 
ploring. THAT  TIME  HAS  PASSED  AND  NOW 
WE  STAND  FOR  DESTRUCTION— THE  DE- 
STRUCTION OF  CAPITALISM." 

On  August  29,  1914,  The  Call  used  the  following 
language,  which  not  only  reiterates  the  sentiments 
expressed  in  its  editorial  of  August  15,  but  adds  a 
contemptuous  fling  at  the  peace  societies  which  have 
been  coddling  the  Socialists: 

"And  it  may  be  well  to  note  also  that  we  are 
by  no  means  the  peaceable  people  our  opponents 
(the  capitalist  peace  advocates)  wish  to  pre- 
tend, in  this  situation.  *  *  *  We  must  not  be 
confounded  with  the  smooth  prating  knaves  of 
The  Hague  Conference  and  the  ordinary  peace 
society.  If  it  means  literal  war  to  put  capital- 
ism down  and  out,  we  are  always  ready  to  wage 
it  for  that  object.  *  *  *  We  have  a  deadly 
score  to  settle  with  the  capitalist  system,  and 
despite  what  we  may  do  now,  or  what  we  are 
forced  to  do,  we  never  forget  the  ultimate 
enemy,  and  its  supporters  owe  us  nothing  for 
the  part  any  of  us  may  take  in  the  European 


War,  in  any  country.  And  unless  we  are  griev- 
ously mistaken  they  will  find  that  out  as  an 
aftermath  of  the  present  struggle." 

That  certainly  is  plain  enough  for  the  dullest  to 
comprehend. 

But  this  editorial  in  The  Call  expresses  nothing 
new  as  to  the  true  inwardness  of  the  socialist  advo- 
cacy of  international  peace.  Their  papers,  periodi- 
cals and  speeches  are  full  of  hatred  toward  capital- 
ism, and  they  are  agitating  night  and  day  along 
lines  that  they  hope  will  lead  to  the  overthrow  o'S 
our  present  social  institutions  and  result  in  the 
ushering  in  of  the  "Co-operative  Commonwealth." 
Most  of  them  openly  advocate  the  confiscation  of 
the  property  of  the  capitalists — which  capitalists,  it 
must  not  be  forgotten,  include  the  big  and  the  little, 
the  millions  of  farmers,  the  millions  of  savings  bank 
depositors  and  the  millions  of  stockholders  in  indus- 
trial, railroad  and  municipal  utility  corporations. 
While  the  right  wing  of  the  Socialist  Party,  the 
Political  Actionists,  hold  out  the  idea  that  they  hope 
to  bring  about  this  expropriation  with  the  consent  of 
the  "expropriated"  through  the  ballot,  they  do  not 
hesitate  to  say  that  if  necessary,  they  will  join  the 
left  wing  to  bring  about  this  overthrow  with  gun, 
cannon  and  dynamite.  That  the  latter  alternative  is 
what  they  expect  is  well  voiced  by  Victor  Berger,  in 
the  following  prediction  which  he  made  in  his 
paper,  the  Social-Democratic  Herald,  in  1909: 

"In  view  of  the  plutocratic  law-making  of  the 
present  day,  it  is  easy  to  predict  that  the  safety 
and  hope  of  this  country  will  finally  lie  in  one 
direction  only — that  of  a  violent  and  bloody  rev- 
olution. 

"Therefore,  I  say,  each  of  the  500,000  Socialist 
voters,  and  of  the  two  million  workingmen  who 
instinctively  incline  our  way,  should,  besides  do- 
ing  much   reading   and   still    more  thinking, 

also  have  a  good  rifle  and  the  necessary  rounds 
of  ammunition  in  his  home  and  be  prepared  to 
back  up  his  ballot  with  his  bullets  if  necessary." 

H.  M.  Hyndman,  of  London,  who  is  recognized  as 
one  of  the  foremost  living  exponents  of  Socialism, 
makes  this  rather  disquieting  suggestion: 

"*    *    *    Chemistry  has  placed  at  the  dis- 
posal of  the  desperate  and  the  needy,  cheap  and 


4 


powerful  explosives,  the  full  effects  of  which 
are  as  yet  unknown.  Every  day  adds  new  dis- 
coveries in  this  field;  the  dynamite  of  ideas  is 
accompanied  in  the  background  by  the  dynamite 
of  material  force.  These  modern  explosives  may 
easily  prove  to  capitalism  what  gun-powder  was 
to  feudalism." 

John  Spargo,  one  of  the  leaders  in  the  Socialist 
Party  and  a  former  member  of  its  Executive  Com- 
mittee, makes  this  observation: 

"*  *  *  When  the  slaves  answer  the  chal- 
lenge of  Socialism  with  a  united  war-cry  for 
justice  and  economic  freedom,  all  who  resist 
them  will  be  swept  away  as  chaff,  before  the 
fury  of  the  gale.  And  that,  I  believe  will  be  the 
result.  The  despoiled  and  disinherited,  urged 
by  the  mighty  passion  of  Socialism,  will  rise  and 
enter  into  full  possession  of  their  own,  hurling 
Into  the  dust  of  oblivion  false  and  unjust  relig- 
ions, state  crafts,  and  political  economies." 

The  Vorwaerts,  the  leading  socialist  paper  in  Ger- 
many, puts  it  this  way: 

"The  maintenance  of  militarism  is  for  the 
bourgeoisie  of  to-day  a  life  and  death  question; 
it  is  the  only  means  they  have  of  defending 
their  domination  against  the  proletariat." 

The  Appeal  to  Reason,  a  paper  which  claims  a  mil- 
lion circulation,  testifies  as  follows: 

"Labor  demands  all  the  products  of  its  hands 
— and  it  is  going  to  have  them,  let  the  conse- 
quences be  what  they  will.  It  may  cause  the 
slaughter  and  massacre  of  millions.  None  has  a 
right  to  live  who  will  not  help  to  produce  the 
wealth  that  sustains  the  people  of  the  planet." 

Here  is  also  a  choice  bit  from  a  socialist  Bible,  the 
Communist  Manifesto  by  Marx  and  Engels: 

"They  (the  proletarians)  have  nothing  of 
their  own  to  secure  and  fortify;  their  mission  Is 
to  destroy  all  previous  securities  for,  and  insur- 
ances of,  individual  property." 

"*  *  *  Their  ends  (the  Socialists')  can  be 
attained  only  by  the  forcible  overthrow  of  all 
existing  social  conditions.  Let  the  ruling  classes 
tremble  at  a  Communistic  revolution!" 


Frederick  Engels  in  his  "Working  Class  of  Eng- 
land" gives  us  this  picture: 

"The  proletarians,  driven  to  despair,  will  seize 
the  torch  which  Stevens  has  reached  to  them; 
the  vengeance  of  the  people  will  come  down 
with  a  wrath  of  which  the  rage  of  1793  gives 
no  true  idea.  The  war  of  the  poor  against  the 
rich  will  be  the  bloodiest  ever  waged.  *  *  * 
It  is  too  late  for  a  peaceful  solution.  The 
classes  are  divided  more  and  more  sharply,  the 
spirit  of  resistence  penetrates  the  workers,  the 
bitterness  intensifies,  the  guerilla  skirmishes 
become  concentrated  in  more  important  battles, 
and  soon  a  slight  impulse  will  suffice  to  set  the 
avalanche  in  motion.  Then,  indeed,  will  the 
war-cry  resound,  'War  to  the  palaces,  peace  to 
the  cottages,'  but  then  it  will  be  too  late  for 
the  rich  to  beware." 

The  socialist  proposal  in  the  matter  of  an  army 
is  that  it  shall  be  a  citizens'  affair;  that  is,  that 
every  citizen  shall  have  a  gun  and  that  the  citizens 
shall  elect  the  officers  of  the  army.  William  English 
Walling,  one  of  the  brainiest  and  best-posted  Inter- 
national Socialists,  throws  a  very  useful,  if  sinister, 
light  upon  what  this  would  mean: 

"As  long  as  armies  continue  to  exist,  Social- 
ists the  world  over  demand  the  arming  of  every 
citizen  and  the  election  of  officers  by  the  citi- 
zens. Such  an  army  would  not  be  very  useful 
against  the  people  in  case  of  a  general  strike  or 
insurrection." 

Mr.  Walling's  sinister  suggestion  as  to  the  effec- 
tiveness of  citizen  soldiery  in  times  of  revolution 
finds  ample  warrant  in  the  happenings  in  Paris 
during  the  Commune  of  1870-71.  Gustave  Le  Bon, 
writing  of  this,  says: 

"*  *  *  The  armies  created  by  universal  ser- 
vice are  steadily  tending  to  become  nothing  but 
an  ill  disciplined  militia,  and  history  teaches  us 
what  they  are  worth  in  the  hour  of  danger.  Let 
us  remember  that  our  300,000  Gardes  Nationale, 
at  the  time  of  the  siege  of  Paris,  found  nothing 
better  to  do  than  create  the  Commune  and  burn 
the  city.  The  famous  advocate  who  passed  by 
the  only  chance  which  offered  itself  of  disarming 
the  multitude,  was  later  on  obliged  publicly  to 
demand  'pardon  of  God  and  man'  for  having  left 
them  their  arms.    *    *  *" 


H 


A  thousand  utterances  in  books,  speeches  and 
papers  along  the  line  of  the  above  quotations  could 
be  given — but  it  would  only  be  "piling  Ossa  on 
Pelion." 

That  the  socialists  and  anarchists  (who  are  one 
in  so  far  as  their  desire  for  the  destruction  of  our 
present  social  fabric  is  concerned)  have  no  illusions 
as  to  what  it  will  cost  in  blood  to  secure  their  aims 
is  clearly  and  certainly  graphically  shown  by  the 
following  prediction  by  Proudhon  on  the  future  of 
Socialism: 

"The  social  revolution  could  only  end  in  an 
immense  cataclysm,  of  which  the  immediate  ef- 
fect would  be  to  lay  waste  the  earth,  and  to  con- 
fine society  in  a  straight-waistcoat;  and  if  it  were 
possible  that  such  a  state  of  things  should  con- 
tinue only  a  few  weeks,  to  kill  three  or  four 
millions  of  men  by  an  unforeseen  famine.  When 
the  Government  is  without  resources;  when  the 
country  is  without  commerce  and  without  pro- 
duce; when  Paris,  starving,  blockaded  by  the 
provinces,  receives  from  them  neither  money  nor 
provisions;  when  the  workers,  demoralized  by 
the  politics  of  their  clubs  and  the  idleness  of 
their  shops,  seek  their  subsistence  as  best  they 
may;  when  the  State  requires  the  jewels  and 
plate  of  the  citizens  to  send  to  the  Mint;  when 
house-to-house  requisitions  are  the  only  means 
of  collecting  taxes;  when  the  first  granary  is 
pillaged,  the  first  house  entered,  the  first  church 
profaned,  the  first  torch  kindled,  the  first  blood 
spilt,  the  first  head  fallen — when  the  abomina- 
tion of  desolation  has  come  upon  all  Prance — oh, 
then  you  will  know  what  a  social  revolution  is; 
an  unbridled  multitude,  in  arms,  drunk  with 
vengeance  and  with  fury,  armed  with  pikes,  with 
hatchets,  with  naked  swords;  with  cleavers  and 
with  hammers;  the  city  mournful  and  silent;  the 
police  at  the  threshold;  opinions  suspected, 
words  listened  to,  tears  observed,  sighs  num- 
bered, silence  spied  upon;  espionage  and  denun- 
ciations; inexorable  requisitions,  forced  and  in- 
creasing loans,  depreciated  paper-money;  war 
with  neighbors  on  the  frontiers,  impitiable  pro- 
consuls, the  committee  of  public  safety,  a  su- 
preme body  with  a  heart  of  brass;  behold  the 
fruits  of  the  democratic  and  social  revolution." 

So  much  for  the  "beautiful  humanitarianism"  of 
the  Socialists  in  their  vociferous  cry  for  disarmament 


and  international  peace.  It  is  a  joke  and  a  ghastly 
one.  But  there  are  other  jokes  connected  with  this 
matter.  An  international  peace  association  with  a 
distinguished  executive  committee  has  just  issued 
a  pamphlet  which  doubtless  its  members  never  read, 
which,  in  addition  to  boasting  of  treasonable  efforts 
of  the  Socialists  to  undermine  the  American  army 
and  navy,  through  advocacy  of  mutiny  and  desertion, 
contains  the  bombastic  and  ridiculous  claims  about 
what  the  Socialists  have  done  and  what  they  in- 
tended to  do  in  case  war  was  imminent.  As  to  the 
undermining  of  the  army  and  navy,  space  forbids 
an  extended  description  of  the  efforts  of  the  Socialists, 
but  one  illustration  will  suffice  to  give  the  spirit  of 
all.  The  Appeal  to  Reason,  quoted  approvingly  by 
Mr.  George  Allan  England,  the  author  of  the  pamph- 
let referred  to,  had  a  very  systematic  plan  at  work, 
namely  that  of  sending  bundles  of  Appeals  to  all 
army  posts  in  the  United  States.  One  soldier  boy, 
who  was  converted  by  this  treasonable  material, 
wrote  a  letter  to  the  Appeal  to  Reason,  boasting  of 
his  perfidy,  and  the  editor  answered,  saying  that  it 
did  his  old  heart  good  to  receive  the  letter.  The  cor- 
respondence follows  and  speaks  for  itself: 

Bridgeport,  111.,  January  28,  1908. 

Appeal  to  Reason,  Girard,  Kansas. 

Dear  Sirs:  I  was  formally  and  officially  ta- 
booed by  the  plutes  on  the  tenth  day  of  last  July, 
and  they  gave  me  a  piece  of  yellow  paper  to 
certify  that  I  am  no  longer  worthy  to  be  called  a 
servant  of  the  plutes.  I  had  served  a  short  time 
over  three  years  in  the  organized  mob  called  the 
Army  of  the  United  States  when  I  fell  in  with  a 
copy  of  the  Appeal,  and  from  that  time  forward 
I  have  been  too  much  of  a  Socialist  to  serve  in 
any  army  under  arms  to  defend  the  Cause  of  the 
rich.  I  deserted  the  armed  mob,  and  after  one 
year  they  caught  me  and  hence  the  eighteen 
months  in  prison  and  the  little  piece  of  yellow 
paper.  Now,  just  to  convince  the  Appeal  Army 
that  I  was  not  asleep  all  of  this  time  I  will  write 
an  article  for  the  Appeal  to  commence  with  the 
first  issue  in  March.  If  you  will  accept  this 
work  of  course  it  will  be  free  to  the  Appeal  for 
the  purpose  of  enlightening  the  people  on  the 
subject  of  life  in  the  United  States  Army.  I 
will  write  it  in  five  manuscripts,  of  one  thousand 
words  each,  as  follows: 


s 


1.  "Enlisting" — Telling  of  the  falsehoods  used 
to  procure  recruits. 

2.  "Drilling" — Explaining  the  degraded  life 
of  a  soldier  after  he  has  been  assigned. 

3.  "Fighting" — Telling  of  conditions  in  the 
Phillipine  Islands. 

4.  "Deserting"— In  this  article  will  be  set 
forth  the  cause  for  the  large  number  of  deser- 
tions. 

5.  "The  United  States  Military  Prison"— Tell- 
ing of  life  in  the  United  States  military  prison 
at  Ft.  Leavenworth,  Kansas. 

Hoping  this  will  interest  you,  I  am,  yours  for 

the  Cause. 

C.  HUDSPETH. 

Office  of  Appeal  to  Reason 

Girard,  Kansas,  Feb.  19th. 

Mr.  C.  Hudspeth. 

Dear  Comrade:  I  never  received  a  letter  that 
did  my  old  heart  more  good  than  the  one  printed 
above.  It  shows  the  power  of  the  Appeal — and 
among  a  class  of  men  we  need  to  reach.  I  want 
to  send  a  bundle  of  five  to  every  Army  Post  in 
the  United  States  and  its  foreign  possessions.  I 
think  you  will  agree  that  this  offers  a  splendid 
opportunity  to  do  work  that  will  count,  and  count 
big!  If  you  believe  as  I  do,  send  a  dollar  (or  five 
dollars)  to  the  Agitation  League.  There  are  855 
United  States  Army  Posts.  A  bundle  of  five  to 
each  of  their  reading  rooms  will  reach  100,000 
men  who  are  just  as  susceptible  to  our  teachings 
as  the  comrade  above. 

Yours  for  the  Revolution, 

J.  A.  WAYLAND. 

According  to  the  claims  of  Mr.  England  in  his 
pamphlet,  one  would  think  that  in  every  threatened 
trouble  for  the  past  forty  years  the  Socialists,  by 
calling  mass  meetings  which  didn't  mass  and  by 
calling  general  strikes  which  didn't  strike,  "scared 
the  stuffing"  out  of  the  crowned  heads  and  there 
wouldn't  be  any  war, — just  like  that, — so  to  speak. 
Their  general  strike  was,  of  course,  intended  to 
paralyze  the  Government  railways  and  stop  the  min- 
ing of  coal  and  the  production  of  food  and  arms. 
In  other  words,  as  Mr  England  would  have  it  in  his 
pamphlet,  the  Socialists  of  Europe  were  sitting  on 


D 


the  safety  valve  and  practically  holding  the  chan- 
celleries of  that  continent  in  the  palms  o£  their  hands 
so  that  all  they  had  to  do  was  to  push  one  button 
and  the  Kaiser  would  jump,  push  another  button 
and  the  Czar  would  turn  pale,  and  then  they  had 
other  buttons  to  push  for  King  George  and  the  rest 
of  the  potentates. 

Mr.  England  in  his  article  quotes  Mr.  Charles 
Edward  Russell  on  this  tremendous  influence  of  the 
Socialists  of  Europe,  referring  especially  to  the  Basel 
Socialist  Congress,  as  follows: 

"The  real  power  of  the  world  had  spoken,  that 
was  all.  Wonderful  lesson!  You  get  a  glimpse 
of  new  things  possible  and  impending,  such  as 
were  never  hoped  for  except  in  dreams.  One 
word  from  the  International  Socialist  Party,  and 
reason  resumes  her  reign  in  the  excited  brain 
of  every  statesman  in  Europe.  *  *  *  This 
Congress  voiced  the  final  determination  of  mil- 
lions of  workers;  and  before  that  power,  all 
other  power  crumpled  up.  The  Prime  Ministers 
and  Chancellors  and  other  gentlemen  that  usu- 
ally live  in  the  limelight  became  some  absurd 
kind  of  puppets  or  lay  figures." 

Well,  Mr.  Russell  was  over  there  when  the  present 
little  insurrection  broke  out  but  evidently  the  buttons 
got  mixed  up  or  else  his  sabotage  friend  cut  the 
wires.  Even  two  days  before  the  official  declaration 
of  war  by  Russia  in  defense  of  Servia,  one  hundred 
thousand  working  men  in  St.  Petersburg,  who  had 
been  on  strike  for  some  weeks  against  the  railroads, 
municipal  utilities  and  other  important  industries, 
voluntarily  declared  the  strike  off  to  show  patriotism 
and  love  for  their  country.  Emil  Vandervelde,  the 
great  Belgian  Socialist,  who  was  a  prominent  figure 
in  the  Basel  Congress,  entered  the  war  cabinet  of 
Belgium  and  supported  the  Government  when  war 
threatened;  and  this  notwithstanding  that  at  this 
wonderful  Basel  Congress  he  declared:  "Because 
all  governments  are  capitalist  governments,  we 
openly  declare  that  patriotism  and  socialism  are 
utterly  contradictory."  In  England,  the  labor  mem- 
bers of  Parliament,  almost  to  a  man,  supported  the 
war  measures  proposed  by  the  Government.  In 
Germany,  in  which  country  the  Socialist  Party  boasts 
of  over  4,000,000  members  with  more  than  a  hundred 
members  in  the  Reichstag,  where  there  was  a  pos- 
sibility of  their  doing  some  paralyzing,  we  find  that 
they  not  only  unanimously  supported  the  Kaiser's 


10 


war  measures  but  that  their  leaders  have  gone  to 
the  front.  At  first,  the  Socialist  papers  exploited  a 
rumor  that  Liebknecht,  the  hundred  Socialist  mem- 
bers of  the  Reichstag,  and  Rosa  Luxembourg  had 
been  executed  for  standing  by  the  principles  of  the 
Basel  Congress.  Karl  H.  Von  Wiegand,  staff  cor- 
respondent of  the  United  Press,  which  association  is 
friendly  to  the  Socialists,  so  much  so  that  its  matter 
is  run  in  all  of  the  Socialist  papers,  said  in  his 
dispatch  from  The  Hague,  Holland,  August  17,  refer- 
ring to  these  rumors: 

"These  stories  are  absolute  lies.  Not  a  single 
Socialist  has  been  shot.  Not  one  has  been  ar- 
rested. Liebknecht  is  fighting  for  the  Father- 
land, as  are  hundreds  of  thousands  of  other 
Socialists.  Eleven  of  the  Socialist  members  of 
the  Reichstag  are  at  the  front.  The  attitude 
of  the  party  in  the  present  crises  is  best  shown 
by  the  action  of  one  of  their  most  famous 
leaders,  who  has  been  released  after  serving  a 
sentence  of  one  year  for  making  an  anti-militar- 
ist speech.  He  has  issued  an  appeal  to  all 
members  of  the  party  to  rush  to  the  colors  and 
to  aid  in  saving  the  Fatherland." 

The  above  communication  not  only  disposes  of  this 
canard  but  also  of  other  canards  referred  to  by  the 
boastful  Mr.  England. 

It  is  doubtless  true  that  in  the  Socialist  halls, 
where  it  is  easy  for  them  to  lash  themselves  into  fury 
over  the  "horrors"  of  capitalism  and  war,  a  few  of 
their  leaders  really  think  that  they  are  cutting  some 
figure,  but  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Socialist  Party 
are  made  of  men  who  are  just  as  human  and  patri- 
otic as  che  rank  and  file  in  any  other  of  the  political 
parties  and,  as  in  the  case  of  Liebknecht,  Vander- 
velde  and  some  other  leaders,  treason  has  not  des- 
troyed their  love  for  home  and  country. 

The  potential  force  of  the  Socialists  in  Europe  is 
of  as  nebulous  a  quality  as  it  is  in  this  country.  It 
is  good  for  "scareheads"  in  the  Socialist  papers,  and 
war  fulminations  from  the  Socialist  literary  bureaus, 
as  well  as  furnishing  great  stuff  for  the  soap  box 
orators,  but  here  it  ends.  The  four  million  socialist 
voters  in  Germany  are  not  Socialists  at  all.  Prob- 
ably not  more  than  Ave  or  ten  per  cent  of  them  would 
vote  the  Socialist  ticket  if  they  were  citizens  of 
this  country.  They  would  probably  be  Bull  Moosers 
or  Progressives  of  some  kind.  In  Germany  they  are 
simply  anti-monarchists  and  are  fighting  for  a  re- 


1 1 


publican  form  of  government.  Many  here  who  have 
no  sympathy  for  the  Socialist  philosophy,  if  living  in 
Germany,  would  probably  stand  for  the  program  of 
the  Socialists  as  against  that  of  the  monarchists.  If 
the  Kaiser  should  be  defeated  in  this  war,  a  re- 
publican form  of  government  would  doubtless  come 
out  of  the  ruins  but  it  would  have  no  relation  what- 
ever to  Socialism  per  se. 

It  can  well  be  conceded  that  much  of  the  declama- 
tion and  argument  against  the  horror  of  war  and  its 
terrible  effect  upon  the  working  class  is  too  true,  but 
it  would  come  with  much  greater  force  from  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor  and  the  railway 
brotherhoods,  who  represent  the  working  class  in  an 
organized  capacity,  rather  than  from  the  Socialist 
Party,  which  does  not  represent  them;  and,  further, 
it  would  come  better  from  them,  because  they  have 
no  ulterior  motive  in  making  such  arguments.  The 
organized  labor  movement  knows  full  well  that,  if 
the  Socialists  ever  became  sufficiently  formidable  to 
produce  a  real  revolution,  the  true  working  men 
would  be  among  the  first  to  rally  to  the  colors  to 
put  it  down.  They  are  opposed  to  revolution, 
whether  produced  by  crowned  heads  or  by  crazy 
heads. 

In  what  I  have  said  and  in  what  I  have  quoted  from 
Socialists  themselves,  I  have  not  the  least  criticism 
to  make  of  them.  They  are  perfectly  sincere  and 
conscientious  in  their  belief  that  the  social  institu- 
tions today  should  be  overthrown,  and,  recognizing 
that  this  can  only  be  done  through  bloodshed,  they 
are,  from  a  strategic  standpoint,  capturing  every 
position  that  they  can.  I  do  not  blame  them  for 
"putting  it  over"  on  the  Peace  Society  or  the 
preachers  or  the  college  men  and  sentimentalists 
generally,  who  have  become  so  enamored  of  their 
revolutionary  allies.  It  is,  as  I  say,  good  tactics 
and  good  politics  from  their  standpoint;  but  criticism 
certainly  is  to  be  made  of  the  educated  and  sup- 
posedly intelligent  classes  of  this  country  who  will 
permit  themselves  to  be  so  used. 

Remember  that,  as  the  editor  of  The  Call  says,  the 
Socialists  hope  that  the  forces  at  war  in  Europe,  in- 
cluding the  workingmen,  will  all  "bleed  each  other 
to  exhaustion  so  that  the  coming  social  revolution 
may  have  an  easier  job  of  sweeping  out  the  stinking 
fragments.  We  are  through  with  protesting,  mourn- 
ing and  deploring.  That  time  has  passed  and  now 
we  stand  for  destruction— the  destruction  of  capi- 
talism." 

12 


/ 


Note  No.  1. — Since  the  publication  of  the  above 
article,  a  trade  unionist  has  called  my  attention  to 
a  humorous  aspect  of  the  publication  of  the  England 
article  by  the  American  Association  for  International 
Conciliation.  As  stated  In  a  prefatory  note  to  that 
pamphlet,  this  article  was  "reprinted  from  the  organ 
of  the  Socialist  Party  in  America,  The  Neio  York 
Call."  This  trade  unionist  looked  up  the  files 
of  the  paper  and  found  that  the  original  article  con- 
tained a  vigorous  slap  at  the  American  Association 
for  International  Conciliation,  the  organization  that 
has  given  his  views  to  the  public,  which  presumably, 
was  eliminated  from  the  article  before  it  was  handed 
in.    This  is  the  extract: 

"A  new  world  power,  for  the  first  time  *  *  * 
in  tones  of  menace  and  authority  declaring 
against  war — crying  'War  Against  War!  Peace, 
even  if  we  have  to  fight  to  get  it!' — this  wrought 
the  miracle.  No  Hague  Tribunals,  no  professional 
peace  society  or  Association  for  International 
Arbitration,  no  disarmament  scheme  of  'the 
great'  (many  of  them  engaged  in  manufacturing 
cannon  and  armor  plate),  no  banquet  devouring 
fraternity  of  white-waistcoated  diplomats  and 
grandees  so  much  as  lifted  a  finger — or  a  duck- 
laden  fork — in  face  of  the  actual,  impending 
slaughter.  Not  even  one  little  finger.  All  these 
gentlemen  promptly  scurried  to  cover  when  the 
drums  began  to  roll." 

*    *    *    *  * 

"A  new  world  power  capable  of  speaking  in 
tones  loud  enough  and  authoritative  enough  to 
muzzle  all  the  war  dogs  simultaneously  suc- 
ceeded where  the  professional  peacemongers  so 
signally  failed  to  get  results." 
Other  choice  morsels  excised  by  England  are: 

"The  Berlin  Socialists  often  turn  out  200,000 
or  300,000  strong  *  *  *  and  reaffirm  their  de- 
termination to  turn  their  rifles  against  the  enemy 
at  home,  i.  e.,  the  capitalist  and  ruling  class, 
before  they  will  ever  shoot  their  proletarian 
brothers  of  different  race  and  speech." 

***** 
"Let  just  this  be  said,  and  driven  well  home, 
that  not  through  diplomacy,  not  through  Hague 
conferences,  not  through  church  or  state  or  royal 

13 


power  will  permanent  world  peace  come,  but  just 
through  the  now  crystallizing  refusal  of  the  com- 
mon people  to  be  taxed,  suffer,  march,  shoot,  die 
for  their  masters  benefit — alias  'the  flag'!" 

But  worse  yet,  after  being  so  hospitably  treated 
and  highly  honored  by  the  American  Association  for 
International  Conciliation,  Mr.  England  published  an 
article  in  The  Call  of  August  9,  in  which  he  used 
most  of  the  material  that  was  published  by  that 
association,  including  also  his  old  attack  on  it, 
which  was  not  a  very  gracious  thing  for  Dr.  England 
to  do. 

Note  No.  2. — I  predicted  in  my  article  in  The  Sun 
that  the  real  leaders  of  the  Socialist  Party  would 
thank  me  for  putting  their  true  position  before  the 
public.  This  The  Call  promptly  did  in  its  issue  of 
September  1,  as  follows: 

"There  has  always  been  some  difficulty  in  get- 
ting our  propaganda  clearly  understood,  and 
though  we  always  insist  upon  accentuating  the 
revolutionary  character  of  Socialism,  there  are 
always  great  numbers  who  will  persist  in  rank- 
ing us  with  reformers  and  futile  mollycoddles  of 
that  species  and  its  numerous  variations. 

"It  is  to  undeceive  these  good  people  that  Mr. 
Ralph  Easley,  of  the  Civic  Federation,  comes  to 
the  rescue,  as  he  has  done  on  many  such  occa- 
sions, and  always  insists  on  our  revolutionary 
character,  with  the  ostensible  purpose  of  fright- 
ening the  good  people  away  from  us.  We  say 
ostensible  advisedly,  and  The  Call  is  much  in- 
debted to  Mr.  Easley  for  his  assistance  in  put- 
ting us  right  before  the  capitalistic  minded  pub- 
lic. We  will  take  the  chance  of  his  doing  us  any 
harm. 

"Recently  we  published  an  editorial  purporting 
to  give  the  stand  of  Socialists  generally  upon 
war,  and  of  course  discussing  it  wholly  as  to  its 
effect  in  assisting  the  realization  of  social  revolu- 
tion. But  there  was  one  thing  we  had  over- 
looked, and  Mr.  Easley  kindly  supplies  it. 

"He  obligingly  quotes  almost  our  entire  edi- 
torial in  last  Sunday's  issue  of  the  New  York 
Sun,  thus  bringing  it  to  the  attention  of  at  least 
some  45,000  readers  we  could  not  reach,  and  then 
warns  the  church  folks,  the  peace  society  people, 
and  what  he  calls  'humanitarians'  generally, 
that  our  opposition  to  war  is  not  based  upon  the 


14 


same  considerations  as  theirs,  and  that  they 
need  not  expect  their  views  to  be  supported  by 
us. 

"That  is  overwhelmingly  true,  and  it  is  the 
thing  we  had  forgotten  to  mention.  And  we  say 
again,  we  are  obliged  to  Mr.  Easley  for  thus 
emphasizing  what  we  had  overlooked. 

'But  let  us  add  our  indorsement  to  what  he 
has  said.  The  people  he  mentions  have  nothing 
to  expect  from  us.  We  are  decidedly  not  'peace 
advocates'  and  'humanitarians'  in  the  sense  they 
are.  If  we  were,  we  should  be  attending  peace 
conferences,  praying  in  the  churches  for  peace, 
and  'denouncing'  war  on  'principle,'  as  they 
imagine  they  do. 

"We  do  oppose  war  on  'principle,'  but  it  is  our 
own  principle,  not  theirs." 


15 


